by Wolf » Mon Aug 10, 2015 6:35 pm
Unfortunately, I can say for certain that he is not happy, if he were happy then he would not be plucking his feathers out. This is not to say that he doesn't have periods of being happy, because he probably is happy part of the time. It is interesting to note that except in a few instances birds in the wild do not pluck and the few times that are known about, there was a medical issue causing it. Now that brings us to the point where we have to look for what the cause of this behavior is so that it can be changed and hopefully stop the plucking.
At this point, I have no response as to whether this may be a habit or not as in your first post you said that he recently started to pluck and in this last post you say that he has been plucking for a while, please elaborate on this so that I can understand what is happening here. We are creatures of habit as are all other animals that I have ever met or seen, we are slaves to our habits. In 60 years I have never seen anyone ever to eliminate a habit once it develops. The best that I have seen is the trading of one habit for another, so lets hope that this has not yet developed into a habit.
If your bird has not been to a vet in at least a year it would be a good idea to start off with a visit to the vet to rule out any medical cause for his plucking. The next thing is to evaluate his diet, for possible allergens such as soy and soy products, food dyes, artificial preservatives and artificial vitamins and minerals. as any or all of these could cause a bird to pluck.
Lighting that allows him to become hormonal at the wrong time of the year could also cause his plucking, especially when it is combined with a diet that is too high in fat, protein and starches.
Stress can be a cause of plucking and in your household, I am doubtful that he is plucking out of boredom, I think that stress is much more likely than boredom. One of the stresses that may be at work here is the amount of time that he gets to spend with and on you as he is very needy in this area and if he gets less than 2 or 3 hours out of cage time with and on you then he is probably feeling left out and alone and in need of more attention. I know that he is not a big touchy, feely type bird as I also have a Grey. It does not matter to your bird that all he does is sit there on your arm, hand or even shoulder, he just wants to be with you and a part of whatever it is that you are doing.
So these are some of the most common reasons for plucking. They give us at least some place to start. Even if lighting and diet are not the cause for your birds plucking this is still an area that you should look at as they are the major reason for a bird becoming hormonal along with petting the bird any place other than on its beak, head or neck. Here is what happens as well as some of its relationship to plucking behaviors.
Parrots are photoperiodic which is a big word that says that your birds breeding cycle is affected by light. Right in the center of the birds brain is a gland called the pituitary gland that responds to light and the bird gets this effect right through its skull as it is so thin. The bird also has an internal, biological clock which measures the length of the daylight and of the night. This clock is important because it helps to signal the pituitary gland that it is breeding season. This clock is set and reset by some very specific light that occurs at only two times of the day, once in the early morning, the twilight period just before the dawn and again in the late afternoon the twilight period that we refer to as dusk. So the bird needs exposure to the light that occurs at these times every day. When the internal clock is not in sync with the seasons the bird gets overly hormonal and that means that the bird is more aggressive than normal and prone to bite and are more territorial than usual. Also the bird may be in physical pain it this has gone on long enough as the birds internal sexual organs grow out of proportion and this causes pressure on then as well as other internal organs such as the heart and air sacs, liver and so on. These sexual organs can grow to more than 100 times their normal size, so if you think about that just a little bit I am sure that you can easily understand how painful this can be. This pain can lead to feather plucking as well as self mutilation as the bird tries to relieve the pressure and pain caused by this condition. It also leads to frequent biting as the pain becomes great enough that the bird can't stand to be touched.
Whereas the light schedule signals the body to produce these hormones and start the reproductive cycle or to end this cycle and start the molting or other cycle, the diet provides the raw materials to produce the hormones, that is done through the amount of protein and fat in the diet. If the diet is too high in protein or fat then the birds body produces too many hormones and can remain in the breeding cycle despite the fact that the signals from the internal clock say that this cycle needs to end. This means that your bird needs a diet that is low in fat, protein and starches in order to not become overly hormonal and aggressive.
As you can see parrots are complicated and this is even moreso when the cause of a behavior is affected by so many things. One really must look at the entire bird and its environment to figure the cause as well as the remedy.